Uzbekistan

Saturday 17th Sept - Apologies for the break in communications, this due to no internet in last week, I am now in Bishkek and will send three editions this weekend, this is the first. -

It has been an interesting few days, a combination of bad roads, flat tyres, dead battery and interesting places.

Bukhara appealed to most of the rally but not really to me, contrary as ever ! Most of the ruins have been rebuilt having been destroyed by floods and the Russians some years ago. Many have become tourist attractions with little residual feeling for the past. The rest are tourist traps selling ethnic souvenirs and other rubbish much admired by inexperienced travellers.

However, having signed up to a walking tour of the old city I lasted all of 10 minutes before pealing off for a mega massage and Turkish Bath in the old part of town. This involved sitting in a boiling cellar for some time followed by a very rough sanding down at the hands of a male masseur followed by a bath, massage and being covered in ginger !. Not a bad way to while away two hours in the heat of the day. I did meet some interesting Uzbek young who could speak good English and complained of being unable to get a job as they did not know any government officials and did not come from a select family. Bottom line, Russians may have left the country but the country has not got rid of Russia.

Interestingly I found it impossible to track down a tyre repair centre in Bukhara and eventually two local students jumped in the car and showed me the way to a small shop behind the street facade. It seems that to keep the city looking good the service shops are behind the main streets making them very hard to find. Only one puncture to fix but I am taking the opportunity to sand down the rough edges on the tyres to see if I can stop these annoying problems.

We had a couple of really good meals out in Bukhara and it is a lovely city at night to be in. We met a Spaniard, Jorge, who came over to say hello and ask about the Bentley, he has a 1936 Hooper version of my car and was really very knowledgable. It was only when we met up again in Samakand two days later that he showed me a table of his car collection, 40 cars including a Bugatti Veyron, a dozen Porsches, several Bugattis and MG's. What the hell was he doing on a coach trip to Bukhara ?

Our caravan moved onto Samakand, which is one of my all time favourite cities although this time I saw more of my car and parts bazaars than I did of it's attractions. Yes, you guess right two more punctures on the way, one after another almost marooning us on the main road. We were saved by the fact the punctures occurred 100 yards from a Vulcanamista who promptly fixed the tubes again for us.

However, I also had a problem with the passenger seat falling to bits, a dicky battery isolator switch and a duff battery. What a weekend, I spent a lot of it looking for parts, the only bright spot being 'jumped' in a queue of 40 cars waiting for petrol by the garage owners three stunning blond teenagers !. Made my day never mind got the car filled up quick, big issue in Uzbekistan is benzine (Petrol), no idea why as it is not expensive but gas and diesel seem more popular these days.

The police are a pain in this country, we are stopped endlessly, mainly for a photo of the car but occasionally in an attempt to extract money from us. However, the Uzbeks are very friendly and once again our difficulties were lightened by genuinely helpful people.

We finally head for the border with Tajikistan and the capital Dushambe pronouced De Shan Be. They are arguing with the Uzbeks so have shut the closest border and forced us to divert 300 kms to the south to a secondary border. This is a major headache as this is the day the inner tube saga reaches crisis level, three punctures in 200 kms. However we are ready for them and as each one comes off I give it a damn good filing to remove all the rough surfaces. I won't bore you with the details but we seem to have established in our own minds what is going wrong and are hopeful the problems will recede in the coming days, only time will tell.

However, we are once again marooned with no spares in a desert which would not have been good except for a good samaritan who stopped, picked up the tyres and me and took us back the way he had come. With his whole family we wait an hour at a small tyre shop whilst the tubes were vulcanised and I filed off more sharp edges. Gave him 20 bucks and he was over the moon. Interestingly they do not drive with the engine on all the time, he would accelerate to 100 kph and then freewheeel down to 30 before repeating the process, I would really love to know how much that improved petrol consumption. Of course many modern English cars do this automatically or stop the engine at the lights however seems the Uzbelks are way ahead of us on this one.

We finally reach the border after numerous police checks and passport registrations to be met with a morass of burocracy, first to leave Uzbekistan and then to enter Tajikistan. On top of which I have the group visa so there are 3 cars and 6 very bored people waiting for us to arrive ! Lucky for them we were not left in the desert for a lot longer !

I have to say that from a scenary point of view Uzbekistan had very little to offer and we did not take many interesting photos outside the two cities. Bye bye Uzbekistan, hello Tajikistan, 93% mountains, 7% flat !

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